Expert SEO Techniques for Dating Affiliate Programs
One of the key elements of successful online dating affiliate marketing is SEO. There are many great dating programs out there that almost sell themselves, but this doesn’t mean that you can just upload content and then expect an audience to arrive and start buying.
Your job as a marketer and affiliate is to attract attention to these programs with engaging, user-friendly content that provides real value to your audience.
You can pay for traffic to come to your site, but this can be extremely costly. If your content isn’t good, all the traffic in the world won’t make a difference. You will have high bounce rates and other negative stats that will bury your site in the bowels of the internet, never to be seen again. You will understand why people fail in affiliate marketing so hopefully you won’t make the same mistakes.
It’s easy to avoid this, however, by using good basic SEO techniques with the online dating niche in mind. A good marketer can turn around a website or landing page that is failing to convert or take a moderately performing page to the moon.
Let’s look at the best techniques that are working right now that you can apply to your online dating affiliate programs.
10 SEO Techniques to Boost Your Traffic and Sales
- Research great keywords (add link when we publish next article): Find the Best Keywords For Dating Sites in 2022
- Use backlinks
- Make your content readable
- Keep it organic
- Learn good formatting habits
- Highlight and bold key phrases
- Embed links
- Use images and infographics
- Optimize images for SEO
- Meta title and description
Research great keywords
A little research goes a long way. The Google Keywords Planner is excellent for this. There are also some great software tools you can buy to check out how often people are using a search phrase on the internet.
The term ‘online dating‘, for example, has on average 100 to 1000 searches per month. This isn’t bad, and you can certainly use this, but the term ‘connecting singles’ has 10k to 100k average searches per month. It will make sense to include both of these terms in your content.
Use backlinks
Backlinks are every bit as important as good keywords. The term refers to a website that points to your page or site via a hyperlink. Search engines don’t only scan the text on a web page for key points, they look for other websites with links to your page as well.
Every link from another high-quality website is considered to be a vote in favor of your content. The higher the authority the linking website has in your niche, the better. You can make links from other websites you own but it is better if they come from other websites that genuinely value your content.
Make your content readable
Web copy needs to be easy to read and this goes double for online dating affiliate programs. Your readers will be looking for the most direct solution to their problem, so you need to cut to the chase while being as informative as possible.
Use short sentences. Minimize your use of passive voice. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points. Keep your paragraphs short. Use a tool like Yoast to evaluate your text on the Flesch Reading Ease scale.
All of these small tweaks will contribute hugely to making your content both user and SEO friendly.
Keep it organic
Let your text flow in a natural, conversational way and do this first before you start making changes for SEO. It can be tempting to squeeze in as many SEO techniques as you can to every piece of content but don’t do it.
Your audience is looking for human companionship, don’t kill the vibe with stilted algorithm-oriented language!
Modern search engines promote content that is written by human beings with other human beings as the intended audience. If there is any hint you are trying to game the algorithm you will be punished.
Learn good formatting habits
Get into the habit of breaking down large chunks of text. Dating sites strive for simplicity and your content should do the same. Make your point in short, easy-to-read pieces of text rather than with a wall of words.
There should be plenty of white space on your page. The algorithm will notice if your text is too dense, or your paragraphs and sentences are too long.
Use headings, subheadings, and bulleted lists to make all of your key points stand out.
Embed links
Backlinks are the holy grail of off-page SEO, but internal links are important as well. If you have an established blog you can link directly to your affiliate landing page from a relevant post and vice-versa.
For example, you can check out our guide on why people fail in affiliate marketing and how to succeed right here.
See what we did there?
Not only does this link make the page you are reading more attractive to a search engine, but it also benefits the target page and most importantly, adds value to you, the reader.
Use images and infographics
Include visuals. This is very easy to do in the online dating niche and your affiliate partner will be there to provide you with plenty of materials. A wall of text with no video, attractive images, or helpful infographics to break things up can be the kiss of death for search engine algorithms.
Optimize images for SEO
Make sure to add meta titles and descriptions to your visuals so that the search engine understands exactly what they are and how to rank them.
There are plenty of websites with high-quality free downloads people smooching, holding hands, or whatever else you need. Your affiliate program manager can also supply you with excellent marketing materials.
Meta title and description
Don’t confuse these with the title of the post or webpage. Your title should contain a keyword but there should also be a separate meta title and a description that will inform the search engine what the page is about.
Without this, the algorithm has to figure this out by itself and there is always the chance it will either be a little off or completely wrong.
The Top 5 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
- Keyword stuffing
- Gaming the system
- Content farms
- Fake backlinks
- Superficial content
Keyword stuffing
Keyword research is important, but don’t try to fill your content with as many as you can. If you have a limited number of relevant keywords, don’t repeat them excessively in the text. Your audience will notice it, and so will the search engines. Your site will be demoted before a single singleton lays eyes on it.
Gaming the system
It’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics of SEO. Don’t fall into the mentality of trying to beat the algorithm. Write content for your audience first and strive to create real value. Only after you have a great article should you go back and make sure it hits all the right SEO checkboxes, not the other way around.
Content farms
You can use these to publish your content and also to create backlinks to your main content, but once again, don’t do it!
The search engines will know where these links come from and will demote them. Even if it seems like a content mill is getting lots of hits, your piece will be swamped by all the other competing articles on there and the algorithm will punish you for sure.
Fake backlinks
These are every bit as dangerous as using a content farm. If someone promises they can provide you multiple backlinks, comments, followers, or anything similar, run for the hills.
The links will come from known SEO blackhat sites, the fake comments will be dreadful and the phony followers will all quickly evaporate.
Worst of all, however, is that your site could be permanently damaged in the SEO rankings. If a site becomes deindexed it can be next to impossible to save it.
Superficial content
It should go without saying that your content needs to offer value. Typically this means that you need to write 1000 words plus at a minimum and it needs to have something useful for the reader.
Filling up space with superficial information that wastes the reader’s time is a huge no-no. Even if you experience short-term gains, sooner or later you will be rumbled and down your rankings, clicks, page views and affiliate earnings will go.
The Bottom Line
There is no better time to get involved in the business of online dating affiliate marketing, but you need to understand the basic principles of good SEO.
Those who are willing to take the time to master a few easy rules can make their content stand out to search engines as well as potential clients. With a little patience and time, what starts as a fun side hustle can easily become a full-time, lucrative business venture.
What Are You Waiting For?
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